My 15 ways to overcome fear

My psychologist Elena made me realize something last year with a single question:

—How much would you have accomplished if you weren’t afraid?

I had never reconsidered the possibility that I was afraid of anything. Fear of success? Ridiculous. Until, of course, I reflected and watched myself closely over the following months. The truth is, I’ve accomplished a lot—but I would have accomplished more if I hadn’t been afraid. The problem wasn’t just that I felt fear; it was that I didn’t even know I was afraid. It was an invisible brake I’d installed myself without noticing.

The best way to identify whether you’re afraid is to listen to yourself when you say things like: “I don’t have time,” “When my English gets better,” “When I have more money,” “When I’m mentally ready.” The usual excuses that keep you safe become a pattern that repeats across your projects and decisions. You start strong, excited, even obsessed… and suddenly, you hit the brakes. As if something in you said, “That’s far enough.” That’s how I identified that I was afraid—different from the fear I already knew—and the kind most people in the world carry. The mind gets comfortable at the same level of life. Success forces you to climb a step. And that change hurts, burns, strips you bare. You’re not afraid of winning; you’re afraid of what you might lose by winning.

Once I recognized it, I looked for ways to beat it… and hopefully get closer to my best potential.

Use logic

Yes, fear has no logic or common sense. I once heard someone use the acronym FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real. That’s fear—false impressions that look real. We should break fear logically. Go to the root. Explain it. Tell yourself: it’s just money. It’s simply a bad article. It’s just a meeting with people arguing to see who’s right. It’s only an on-camera interview answering questions about a topic you know better than anyone. Is this something you should fear? As Seneca said, we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Block other people’s opinions

Most people who are now overvalued and adored were dismissed during the process. More than once I’ve noticed when an artist drops an album, all the haters come out en masse. Everyone wants different sounds and specs, but when the artist releases the second album with those exact specs and suggestions, they say they preferred the sound and style of the first. Other people’s opinions are… contradictory. Let them say whatever they want about you, your book, your company—they’ll talk anyway. Don’t value faceless, responsibility-free opinions above your own considered judgment. Almost everything new and correct faces heavy objections from the status quo.

Associate with brave people

This is one of my favorites. Like a virus, courage spreads by contact. It travels through the air. Get close to people who transmit bravery. Let their surplus strength spill over you.

Define your fears

This practice was taught to me by my psychologist Elena. It’s famous and promoted by many, but doing it is different from knowing it. The exercise is to define your fear. One way is to write about it—ban justifications, “maybes,” and ornamentation. Then identify the root: “…because if that happens, what I really fear is…” One example: “I’m afraid to send my manuscript because if no one likes it, I’ll be confirming I’m not that good.”

Define your fears (again)

What we fear, we rarely know precisely. We never truly define what worries us so much. Our fears aren’t concrete; they’re shadows, illusions, refractions. Entrepreneur and writer Tim Ferriss has talked about “fear-setting”—defining and articulating the nightmares, anxieties, and doubts that hold us back. The ancient roots go at least to the Stoics. Seneca wrote about premeditatio malorum, the deliberate meditation on the troubles we might meet. A vague fear is enough to deter us; the more we examine it, the less power it has.

Focus on the far side of fear

Don’t worry about whether things will be hard—they will be. Focus instead on the fact that these things will help you. That’s why you don’t need to fear them. Our bruises and scars become armor. Our struggles become experience. They make us better. They prepared us for this moment, and this moment will prepare us for the next. They’re the scent that makes victory taste sweet. If it were easy, everyone would do it. If everyone did it, how valuable would it be? The point is: it’s hard. Risk is a feature, not a bug. Nec aspera terrent—do not be frightened by difficulties. Be like the athlete who knows what a tough workout gives you: stronger muscles.

Find your agency

Fear decides what is or isn’t possible. If you believe something is too scary, then it is—for you. If you believe you have no power… you don’t. If you’re not the captain of your fate… then fate is the captain of you. We live in two modes: either we choose to believe we can change our situation, or we decide we’re at the mercy of it. We can trust luck… or cause and effect. In adversity, there are two kinds of people: the kind who asks, What’s going to happen to me? and the kind who asks, What action am I going to take? As General James Mattis reminded his troops: never think you are powerless. Choose your response.

Fear who you don’t want to become

All growth is a jump into the dark. If you’re afraid of that, you’ll never do anything worthwhile. If you obey your fears, you’ll never take the step, never make the leap. There’s no way around it: no progress without risk. If fear is going to drive your life, fear what you’ll miss. Fear what happens if you don’t act. Fear what others—and you, in the future—will think of you for daring so little. Think of what you’re leaving on the table. Think of the terrifying costs of playing small.

Take heart in the tradition

People crossed land bridges to new continents, rebuilt after fires, strapped on armor and ran to battle, demanded inalienable rights from their governments, faced mobs, escaped slavery or lack of opportunity in the dead of night, explored the frontiers of science—those people, indirectly and directly, created you. Their blood runs in your veins. Their DNA is fused with yours. You come from fighters and survivors. You come from people who faced fate, took the hits, and gave their best. They failed, made mistakes, were knocked down—but survived. They survived long enough to set in motion the events that carry us forward today. When we’re afraid, we can look up to those who came before us.

Replace fear with competence

“Know-how helps,” begins the Army Life manual given to U.S. soldiers in World War II. Fear can be defined and explained, but it’s more effective to replace it—with competence. With training. With tasks. With a job that needs doing. Training isn’t just for athletes and soldiers. It’s the key to overcoming fear in any situation. Confidence is knowing what you’re doing. As Epictetus said, the goal when we experience adversity is to be able to say: This is what I trained for; this is my discipline. What we know, we can handle. Danger can be mitigated by experience and good training. Fear leads to aversion. Aversion leads to cowardice. Repetition leads to confidence. Confidence creates the opportunity to be brave.

Start small

The French talk about petites actions—small first steps, momentum builders, little things that add up. We should think that way when we feel fear or despair in the face of a huge problem. We don’t need to lead a grand charge. Put aside fantasies of some death-defying gesture. Sometimes the best starting point is small. “Never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small,” said Florence Nightingale, “for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.” Remove one problem. Move things a little. Write one sentence. Send one letter. Make a spark. We can figure out the next step from there.

Just go. Just move.

How do you get past fear? All the reasons not to do the thing you’re thinking about? In the words of decorated Navy SEAL Jocko Willink: to overcome fear, you go. You just do it. You launch into the dark. It’s the only way. Because if you don’t, what’s coming? Failure. Regret. Shame. A lost opportunity. Any hope of progress? Fear wants you to spend the day deliberating; courage knows you have to move, you have to get going. As de Gaulle told some cautious members of his administration: in matters like this, you move or you die. “I have decided to move; that does not exclude the possibility of dying as well.” No one can guarantee a safe step in life; nothing prevents the possibility of failure or death. But if you don’t go? You guarantee failure and suffer another kind of death. Later, you’ll wish you’d done something. We always do. Which means that right now, you have to go.

Make courage a habit

There’s that cliché advice: do one thing every day that scares you. Turns out it’s not bad. How do you expect to do the big scary things—the ones that scare others—if you haven’t practiced? How can you trust yourself to step up when the stakes are high if you don’t do it when the stakes are low? So we should test ourselves. Seek challenges. “Always do what you are afraid to do,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Or as William James wrote, we want “to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.” We must make courage a habit.

Love arms us against fear

It’s almost too perfect that the root of the word courage means heart. James Stockdale and his fellow POWs would signal each other with the letters U and S. What did it mean? Not “United States”: Unity over Self. They said it to each other when they were alone, when they were taken to be tortured, and when they sat in their cells beating themselves up for what they might have said under torture. What larger unity are you part of? What love drives you? Who are you brave for—country, cause, comrade, family? That’s the other side of the coin from “what’s in it for me.” That’s how we push past our limits.

Ask for help

Sometimes that’s the strongest and bravest thing you can do. “Don’t be ashamed of needing help,” wrote Marcus Aurelius. “Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and need a comrade to pick you up? So what?” Exactly. So what? It’s okay to need a hand. To need reassurance, a favor, forgiveness—whatever it is. Need therapy? Go. Need to start over? Good. Need to lean on someone’s shoulder? Of course. We’re in this mission together. We’re comrades. Ask for help. It’s not just brave—it’s right.

Whatever you’re trying to do, whoever you dream of becoming, there will be many reasons it will seem wrong. There will be tremendous pressure to push these thoughts, these dreams, this calling out of your mind. That’s what Florence Nightingale went through. For 30 years, her family and society pressured her to dispose of, to ignore her vocation. How many lives did that cost? How wrong were they? Depending on where we are and what we seek to do, the resistance we face may be simple incentives… or outright violence.

Fear will make itself felt. It always does.

Will you let it stop you from answering the call? Will you leave the phone ringing?

Or will you move closer, arm yourself with courage, prepare—until you’re ready to do what you were put here to do?